At least one person died as severe weather erupted across a vast stretch of the United States on Sunday amid warnings of widespread damaging winds, tornadoes and hail as large as baseballs.
A tree fell on a travel trailer that was camped along the Illinois River between Tahlequah and Kansas, Oklahoma, during heavy winds early Sunday morning, trapping a couple inside, said Cherokee County Sheriff Jason Chennault.
The man was pronounced dead at the scene, and the woman suffered minor injuries, Chennault said.
The highest risk Sunday covered a large area from northeastern Texas and northern Louisiana through Mississippi, northwestern Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and southern Michigan, potentially affecting more than 40 million people.
The Storm Prediction Center placed these areas under an enhanced risk level of 3 out of 5 on the severe weather scale.
Tornado watches popped up across Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee on Sunday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.
A few strong tornadoes could be expected, the National Weather Prediction Center said.
The volatile setup was being driven by a cold front linked to a storm system that is moving through the Great Lakes and will collide with warm, moisture-rich air in the South, creating prime conditions for powerful thunderstorms.
“To the warm side of that front in the South, we’ll have enough moisture and instability to get thunderstorms, and some of them could be severe,” said Marc Chenard, a meteorologist at the Weather Prediction Center.
The threat was expected to escalate Sunday evening, as storms that initially develop across Missouri and Illinois intensify while spreading into Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas and the Lower Mississippi and Tennessee Valleys.
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